Top Podcasts
Edge Of Davos Part 5: Garry Krugljakow (GOGO protocol), Maria Buccellati (Faith Tribe), Andrea Abrams (Phygicode), Cyrus Fazel (Swissborg)
Web 3.0 may not be fully developed yet, but it is already impacting so many industries at different levels. We continue our trip to Davos, Switzerland as we highlight business leaders who are taking advantage of Blockchain, DeFi, and the entire NFT marketplace today. Garry Krugljakow of GOGO Protocol discusses how they gamify staking and yield farming mixed with NFTs, while fashion leaders Maria Buccellati (Faith Tribe) and Andrea Abrams (Phygicode) explain how the metaverse can change clothes shopping forever. Cyrus Fazel (Swissborg) emphasizes the importance of ESG as a huge part of NFT projects, pushing responsible brand building even further.
—
Listen to the podcast here
Edge Of Davos Part 5: Garry Krugljakow (GOGO protocol), Maria Buccellati (Faith Tribe), Andrea Abrams (Phygicode), Cyrus Fazel (Swissborg)
We’re here in Davos, Switzerland, coming to you from the World Economic Forum Convention that happens every year. We’re going to bring you some of the sharpest minds and global leaders, telling you what they think about what’s next and how they’re making it happen. In this episode, we’re going to transition from one interview to the next to give you that feeling that you’re here with us, transitioning from one engaging conversation to the other. Stay tuned, sit back, relax, and enjoy.
—
We are back in Davos, enjoying another lovely yet cloudy day. It’s been a little bit rainy here, but we’ve been able to find solace from time to time. We’re going to try something a little fun. We’re going to do a little bit of a walk and talk with our guest. His name is Garry Krugljakow. I’m going to let him introduce himself. We’ll talk a bit about what he’s been up to the past years and some other fun stuff. Garry, introduce yourself.
Thanks. It’s great to be here. It’s fun trying this one out. My name is Garry. I’m the Founder of the GOGO Protocol and the new 0VIX Protocol. I’m a former banker. I moved into FinTech many years ago. I built a couple of FinTech companies here in Europe and then got caught by the CryptoBuck in 2020. I can’t imagine doing anything else.
**Where are you from? Where were you born? Where have you lived? **
I grew up in Berlin, Germany. I didn’t think that’s a fun place, especially when you want to disrupt tech or finance. Berlin hasn’t been this financial capital like London or even Frankfurt. When I was eighteen, I moved to London to study and then went into finance. I started working there in the city, in the financial district. After a number of years, I realized banking is changing and evolving. The traditional way we do banking and financial services will have to change. That’s what made me move into FinTech.
A lot of people who worked in traditional finance, especially around the 2008 and 2007 period, said,” This is not working,” even though everybody’s pretending that it would continue to work. It’s interesting to encounter that principle again. Tell me about these specific projects you’ve been up to, from the spirit of what we had talking about banking and FinTech. It sounds a little bit dry, but there is some exciting stuff. That’s been building some community.
Back then, I joined a small FinTech called N26, a mobile bank. It’s the 2nd or 3rd largest mobile bank here in Europe. We were a small team that helped build and scale part of that business back then. After the launch, we left a handful of other team members to start our own company called Cookies, a peer-to-peer payment app. TechCrunch called it the Venmo of Europe. It was a money sending, peer-to-peer type of app.
We scaled it quite up nicely but then sold the company to Klarna, another big Swedish FinTech company. I then built my third FinTech, which was more focused on SMEs and helping SMEs out with short-term financing because banks have traditionally not been helping them. We scaled it quite nicely and sold it to a larger German bank just before COVID hit. That’s when the DeFi Summer started to happen, and crypto became what it is. We decided to start an NFT collection to play around with some ideas. In a couple of days, this NFT collection became one of the top fifteen trending NFT trading card games on OpenSea.
**Did you have any idea that was going to happen? **
No, it was more of us playing around, fooling around, creating some sick artwork of 3D animators that work day and night to make this happen. It became what it is known as Cryptogogos.
**You told me previously that it started with you and one other partner. You brought on some talented artists. You braced some ideas and came up with something that eventually even surprised you at how powerful it was. Where are we at this point? When exactly was the launch? **
We launched in early 2021. I wouldn’t say it was the peak of the whole NFT hype, but this was the first time it went viral. People started discussing how NFTs will change art, music, and culture. We wrote that wave essentially. We’re excited to be part of that fundamental change in how we own our art. We engaged with digital art. It was exciting to be part of that big initial shift towards NFTs.
We have ancient NFT history. It goes back to way back in 2017. We have a little bit of history here, too. It had been around since early 2021. We get to look back. How do you reflect on where you’re at now versus when you started? I’m sure the floor price goes up and down. You find ways to develop the project. What are you doing with the project?
After the initial hype, people started asking us on Discord and Telegram, “What can we do with those NFTs rather than buying, selling, and trading?” For this one, we came up with the idea known as a Gogoprotocol. It is essentially an online platform where you can stake tokens and use your NFTs depending on the rarity to boost your staking.
Let’s say you have one of the rarest NFTs. You can get a significantly higher reward than the least rare NFT. It’s gamifying this experience of staking and yield farming in combination with NFTs. This is how we evolve the collection from having something to look at and trade back and forth. We use it for something that is also interesting to many crypto people, such as taking annual yield farming.
Did you have any idea that was going to be part of the project when you started?
Not at all, but given my background, anything DeFi-related. I love art. My mom is a pianist. My dad’s an engineer. That is what we do. We have this NFT side of the protocol, and then we have the DeFi side that we’re focusing on a lot because DeFi is also in its early days. Coming back to my history, DeFi is probably going to change the financial world and what we see here in Davos. Every second house is somehow crypto-related and DeFi-related. With Polygon, we’re going to do massive things in the DeFi space. I’m excited about that.
Web 3.0: So many brands claim to be sustainable but fail to deliver. These false claims collapse the value of a brand.
I talked to a banker. They’ve had a bank for decades, almost maybe one of the original private banks or something. They decided they wanted to be one of the first to deal in cryptocurrencies.
It’s a Swiss banker, I assume.
**That’s fascinating coming from this world. It’s exciting because there’s money involved. You do fun stuff with money, but it’s a little bit dry. Seeing how it evolved into something, it’s like you’ll take it. This is interesting and fascinating. There are so many incredible things going on. **
In our white paper for the GOGO Protocol, which we wrote, we found the number that in the next 20 to 30 years, over $70 trillion of assets will be inherited from the younger generation. Young folks like Gen Y and Gen Z are not going to invest in gold bullions or some stock that their parents grew up with. They’re going to invest in NFTs, crypto, and DeFi. If you look at that number itself, that’s 30 or 40 times higher than the current market valuation of all crypto projects combined. This gives you a clue of the room we have to grow in the next years.
Who would’ve thought that the systemic problems of those late 2000s that people were looking for an answer to would lead to stuff like this? It’s fascinating. We appreciate the time that you spent with us. We want to know what’s next for you personally, the Gogos, and everything else? You can even share what you generally think is next.
The GOGO Protocol that embeds the NFTs also is going to relaunch version 2 or 2.0, probably as early as June 2022. We’re excited about that. We’re going to expand the product offering. There will be interesting products for the user to stake their crypto with and engage with their NFTs. Other than that, we are launching a money market protocol on Polygon. It’s hopefully the first native money market protocol called 0VIX.
There will be many touchpoints between Gogo and 0VIX. Continuing that DeFi story, we lack a sustainable source of yield in DeFi, and this is where 0VIIX comes to play. I’m excited about the next weeks and months. Personally, I get little sleep as it is. I don’t think that’s going to change anytime soon, but I’m looking for better weather.
I’m motivated to dive a bit deeper into Gogo and see what’s going on. We’ve got a question from the audience. How does 0VIX solve that DeFi yield? How do you think about that differently?
When we look at money market protocols and lending protocols, we see that many have this multi-chain or cross-chain approach. They don’t stay true to one blockchain but rather wherever the hype is. What we saw and identified at Polygon, which is the strongest blockchain in terms of scalability other than Ethereum, didn’t have this natively-focused money market. A lot of people moved back and forth between other chains, like Layer 1s and Layer 2s.
The GOGO Protocol is on Polygon. We identified for our users that it would be great if we could support them throughout the whole yield generating journey. If you look at where yields come from in DeFi, they usually come from lending and borrowing initially. There are arbitrage opportunities and other funky, exotic strategies based on derivatives.
**We’ve all encountered some funky strategies before. **
That’s why we’re close with the Polygon team. They also approached us around the same time when we identified that problem and said, “Let’s do something.” This is where 0VIX came to be. We are in public beta with over 2,000 to 3,000 users organically and a lot from the Bendigo community as well. Hopefully, we’re going to launch once the dust settles with this market terminal we were in or are still in. I’m excited about that. That way, you can have sustainable yields on Polygon for the broader Polygon ecosystem, including for protocols such as Gogo. I’m excited about that.
Thanks a lot. Before we end, let people know where they can go to find out more about you.
You can find us on Twitter @GogoCoin and @0VIXProtocol. We are also on Telegram with the same user names. The websites are GogoCoin.io and 0VIX.com.
It’s lovely to meet you. Thanks for taking your time.
Thanks. It was a pleasure.
—
We have some special guests, Maria Buccellati and Andrea Abrams. We’re going to talk a bit about fashion. It’s an exciting topic to bring here to Davos. I’m going to let them each introduce themselves, and then we’re going to jump into a rousing conversation. Why don’t we start with Maria?
I’m Maria Buccellati. I’m the Founder and Owner of Faith Connexion and Cofounder of Faith Tribe.
I’m Andrea Abrams. I’m the Founder of Phygicode. We are a consortium of industry leaders and physical and digital metaverse development, helping brands and entertainment products bridge the gap between the physical and digital. I’m also the Chief Strategist for Faith Tribe DAO with Maria.
It’s a privilege to have you here. We had to pull you in from everything that’s going on. Andrea, you’ve got two hours of sleep every day. It’s great to be able to spend some time with you. A great question to start with, to give some foundation here, is, “Why is Davos an important place to be for you? What brings you here? Have you been involved before? If not, why now?”
This is the first year for me with Web3, with what’s going on with the most transformative thing that’s happened to the fashion and retail industry in my many years in the business. It was important for us to be here because it was one of those events that were neutral when it came to protocols. It was platform agnostic. What I loved about the program is that we have a lot of friends, all the new coming together that are all involved in metaverse development.
We have NFTs. You have conversations about crypto. You have conversations about platforms. I found that the content is innovative and much forward-looking at what’s next. This is what we’ve done so far. Where are the smart companies going forward? It was great to see some of the traditional Web 1. 0 and Web 2.0 players here as well.
**I even learned there is a metaverse committee for the World Economic Summit. We hung out with Robby Yung from Animoca Brands for a little bit of time. He was only here for 24 hours. The fact that they’re having this committee says a lot about the significance of what we’re all doing and how we’re spending all of our time. Maria, do you have any comments on being here and this situation? **
I see that what we’re doing is so important at this moment. It’s a moment in time, and we’re living it in this second. We’re part of the world economy. We’re part of the progress. That’s why we’re here. There’s a reason. It’s not just like that. It’s interesting to see a dynamic group of people put together where there are different sorts and different businesses.
I was on the plane, and next to me was the mayor of Miami. I was like, “You’re going, too?” and he was saying, “You’re going, too?” I said, “I have a talk. How about you?” He was like, “I do, too.” It was so casual. Mayor Francis Suarez was on the plane coming here and being part of something I’m also part of. It’s a movement, and this is what’s different in Davos. This is why these conversations in the blockchain hub are so creative and novel.
**I was talking to the Ministry of Trade of Singapore, and they were interested in Web3. It’s quite incredible. One of the key components of Web3 that could be the whole focus of this conversation, a house, or a conference is DAOs. There are a lot of misconceptions and capabilities of DAOs that don’t always get talked about. I would love to get both of your perspectives on DAOs, how they generally are working, what they maybe could do differently, and how they apply to the industry around fashion and can support some of your goals like sustainability? **
Maria comes from an organic way of building community. That’s why I was so excited to join her. I have been in the blockchain space since 2018 with some of the biggest protocols. I’m a big believer in Gavin Woods’ belief that it’s all about truth and not trust. When you think about DAOs, the ones that failed, and about what Gavin said here at Davos, we need more truth.
When Maria called me and said, “You’ve been involved in blockchain for fashion and funding some wonderful digital wearable platforms. How would we do this if we do this through a DAO in Web3?” I said, “There are a few people who can do that authentically and with the truth.” Maria is one of them because I lived through that experience with Maria in the physical world.
We were friends in the physical fashion industry at a time when I said, “No more store parties for me. I’ve been there, done that.” Maria has store parties for Epic. It was a combination of incredible artists and musicians that went on to be Grammy winners at a store party in Soho. It was building community. I started saying years ago to a lot of the fashion brands that I advised, “You need to start looking at the community you are approaching. It is consumption for access, not for possession.”
The access that Maria created around Faith Connexion is the spirit of a proper DAO. It is access that couldn’t be so easily democratized. You had to know Maria. You had to know someone who invited you to the store. You had to be in New York. We’re trying to take that to the metaverse and say, “We can give you access in different ways. We can also invite you to a party in the metaverse and provide you genuine access to Maria and our tools without having to go to that store in New York.”
**I assume that truth also means truth in labeling. I had a small fry in the fashion industry. I learned that you could do one last stitch in a different country and call it made in that country. There are a lot of misconceptions around sustainability and a lot of moving of products from one country to another to make it made in that country. **
It’s funny you mentioned that. We had a t-shirt and a sweatshirt called Made in LA and Made in New York. It was Faith made in LA. This was huge. It was one of our bread and butter. It was one of our concepts.
Web 3.0: Web 3.0 tools are not fully developed yet. But still, you can see how selling products in a virtual world is more attractive to potential buyers.
**I didn’t understand it until I got into it. A lot of people don’t. Part of being in a DAO is learning and being in the mix as opposed to just a consumer. **
I started my keynote with traceability and authentication. When I got into the space, we were not talking about beautiful JPEGs. There were no Punks and no Apes. We were talking about NFTs for what they are and using the tokens on a ledger that is more trusted. It’s a ledger that is more immutable because of what you’re talking about. How many sustainable brands that claim to be sustainable brands failed to deliver the promise of sustainability? When somebody found out where they were making the garment or this process of going around the system to claim it was a false claim, the brand values collapse.
We consume around the community with brand values. One of the things that NFTs for inventory management and traceability can do is show authentic product origin but also product destination. One of the big themes in my personal life, as well as my business life, is circularity. It’s not going to be a choice in many years. Every brand and everybody making a product is going to have to account for the carbon footprint of the product. Being able to have a trusted, immutable, not corruptible ledger that shows where the item ended up and that it’s not in a landfill in Chile somewhere is important when you think of the business of fashion which Maria has been part of for years.
Does that also include a voice at the table in a different way? I’m thinking about some of the controversies with big brands, where they were made, and child labor. You could write and call them, but not the same as being part of the decision-making process. Are you rethinking that from a DAO perspective?
I’m rethinking because, in any case, this experience of being in Davos has given me a possibility to learn also about the DAOs around us. I was with Deepak Chopra. He was speaking, and he went, “Creativity is uncertainty. What is it? We are in an uncertain moment.” He was in a presentation of a DAO of the Future of Cities. They were talking about how we’re going to save those cities.
There we go from that to us, to going to the psychedelic house and learning about meditation. There again, I find Deepak Chopra talking about and doing sessions. It’s interesting how life experiences nowadays are creating these DAOs special and unique. When Andrea says, “Maria, you have this way and ability to put people together.” This is what how to do. To create it in the metaverse, for me, is a dream. We can give that experience, and people can feel it.
**If I get to the gym months later, can I tweak it? **
Thank you so much.
Thank you, guys. Have a great Davos.
—
What year was that?
That was 2015.
Thanks so much for joining us.
Thanks.
—
—